When we first saw Flight 815 crash from the Other's point of view in "A Tale of Two Cities" there was much speculation about the type of crash the plane experienced.

Mid-air breakups are very rare, and the chances of surviving a mid-air break-up are exponentially lower than a crash where the plane stays intact.

We assumed that the plane broke up because the electromagnetic discharge "pulled" the plane to the Island, straining the weak points of the plane as it descended faster than intended and breaking it into three large sections (the cockpit, middle section, and tail section).

But tonight, Damon or Carlton (can't remember which) said the electromagnetic pulse "fried the planes instruments", causing the plane to lose altitude and crash. If this is true and the plan wasn't actually "pulled" to the island, how is the mid-air break-up explained? Shouldn't 815 have just coasted onto the island, or into the water, in one piece like the majority of other plane wrecks?

It almost seems like TPTB answered a long-running mystery in the first scene of Season 3, then refuted it just before the finale. :rolleyes:

i imagine that the magnetic discharge also affected the body of the plane.

Otherwise I simply assume that the break up simply made for a better tv visual than had it not broken up. From a director's perspective its simply a more dramatic way to bring down a plane.

Additionally had they all crashed together then the saga of the tailies would never have been.

Mostly I believe the plane broke in two because it simply allowed for a more intense storyline and a blazingly cool visual...nothing more.

I don't think they were saying the plane wasn't pulled, but just commenting how it also fried the instruments. Don't forget stuff was edited out so you never know what was and what wasn't.

Anyways I think it was a combination of being pulled and instruments being fried. They said the EMF was the definitive answer so I'm not sure what you're getting at to be honest.

Well, we saw that anything metal in the hatch was pulled through the air and presumably stuck to the wall due to the EM energy. Could be this attractive force radiated out over the island too to rip the plane apart. Perhaps the effect could even be greater on the plane since it was large and primarily made of metal.

Why did the electromagnetic pulse only fry the instrumentation on the plane, but not any other instrumentation? Didn't they get a radio or transponder or something from the pilot? Wasn't Sayid was able to rig it up with other bits from the plane to hear Danielle's signal. Why didn't that stuff get fried? Nothing in the hatch was damaged either - the computers were still working after the crash. I was also under the impression that Mikhail's communication station was also working until the Swan imploded, but I could be wrong about that.

I think it broke up mid air because it looked cool.

If it didnt break-up in mid-air then the first part of season two would have been pointless

This kind of bothered me too. If the EMP simply fried the electronics, there would seem to be no reason for the plane to break apart. And the electromagnetic properties of the island would probably not affect the structure of the plane, as they are made primarily of aircraft grade aluminum. I have always believed that there was still more to the story, here, but I guess not.

I thought about this as well. I mostly agree that perhaps there will never be a real explanation for this, and am increasingly hesitant to pick this show apart at every detail. However, I thought this could possibly be explained by the severe turbulance we saw on the plane, similar to the Naomi's helicopter and the Sub, perhaps even on the Elizabeth. It seems there are multiple factors in play for people and objects to be able to reach the island. The electromagnetic anomaly is perhaps only one factor for what brought down Oceanic 815.

Okay, folkses, required reading for people on this thread, or at least strongly recommended.

http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?t=52671

Lots of discussion of why the plane broke up, why it shouldn't have, why it couldn't have been an electromagnetic pulse, etc. Did anyone count the number of times Carlton referred to an electromagnetic pulse? And yet Hurley's CD player still worked, as did a number of other electronic devices both from the plane and on the ground. Thing about an EMP is that, as a rule of thumb, the more complicated the electronic device, the worse it gets fried.

And Boeing 777s are mostly titanium, aluminum and composites, none of which are particularly drawn to a magnet. Not much steel left in that plane, as Boeing takes pride in how light it is, and how much range it has because it is so lightweight for its size.

Suffice it to say that is seems we have to suspend our disbelief, ignore some of our knowledge, and assume that 1, the plane broke up in midair, and 2, its instruments were fried by an EMP both for the same reason.

Because it was in the script.

Okay, allow me to back down a bit, now. Maybe the breakup of the plane had nothing to do with the EMP. Maybe it had more to do with whatever hides the island. Fly into the perimeter. Crash. Violently.

Hey, this is funny -- about that thread above, the last line in my original post on that thread was:
...but hey, a little suspension of disbelief goes a long way.

Think Titanic

Its been proffered that there is some sort of bubble around the island so my theory is the plane broke up because of the stress of passing through the bubble on the wrong compass heading.

there is no way the plane broke up in mid air and people fell hundreds of feet and survived with just a few scratches... people die when the jump out of 15 story buildings.

I still think they were gassed (drugged like Juliet) then set on the ISLAND and the wreckage planted..

Just like Desmond was drugged on his boat and then set on the beach (hence his blurred vision/halucinations when he was being dragged by kelvin).

there is no way the plane broke up in mid air and people fell hundreds of feet and survived with just a few scratches... people die when the jump out of 15 story buildings.

I still think they were gassed (drugged like Juliet) then set on the ISLAND and the wreckage planted..

Just like Desmond was drugged on his boat and then set on the beach (hence his blurred vision/halucinations when he was being dragged by kelvin).

And whoever "gassed" these people also mutilated other "survivors", gave one a head injury that he was incapable of recovering from, and killed over two hundred other people just to use them as props in the plane's fuselage?

great question... i can only answer it with something as ridiculous as there being multiple survivors from a mid-air-plane-breaking-apart-crash.

We assumed that the plane broke up because the electromagnetic discharge "pulled" the plane to the Island, straining the weak points of the plane as it descended faster than intended and breaking it into three large sections (the cockpit, middle section, and tail section).

But tonight, Damon or Carlton (can't remember which) said the electromagnetic pulse "fried the planes instruments", causing the plane to lose altitude and crash. If this is true and the plan wasn't actually "pulled" to the island, how is the mid-air break-up explained? Shouldn't 815 have just coasted onto the island, or into the water, in one piece like the majority of other plane wrecks?

It almost seems like TPTB answered a long-running mystery in the first scene of Season 3, then refuted it just before the finale. :rolleyes:

One possible scenario is:
1. Desmond fails to enter the numbers
2. An EMP radiates outward from the Swan
3. The control circuits on the 777 fail, causing the pilot to lose control
4. The plane goes into a nose-dive, at ever increasing speed, whcih
in turn puts ever-increasing stress on the body of the plane
5. Eventually the plane reaches its stress limit and breaks apart

Remaining problems:
1. When that happens in real life, the greatest stresses are on
the wings, which rip off from the fuselage before anything else happens. In 815, the fuselage broke in half with the wings still on.
2. if the EMP fried the control circuits, why didn't it fry Hurley's CD player or the pilot's emergency radio?

Remaining problems:
1. When that happens in real life, the greatest stresses are on
the wings, which rip off from the fuselage before anything else happens. In 815, the fuselage broke in half with the wings still on.
2. if the EMP fried the control circuits, why didn't it fry Hurley's CD player or the pilot's emergency radio?

Two very solid points.

But from what we saw in "A Tale of Two Cities", Flight 815 didn't seem like it was "nosediving", per se.

I think common sense tells us a plane doesn't break apart and debris doesn't land softly across a landscape....

unless that landscape is underwater. i'm serious.

I don't think there were any flaws in the execution of the crash --- they made it perfectly real given what and where the island is... even the daylight...

One possible scenario is:
1. Desmond fails to enter the numbers
2. An EMP radiates outward from the Swan
3. The control circuits on the 777 fail, causing the pilot to lose control
4. The plane goes into a nose-dive, at ever increasing speed, whcih
in turn puts ever-increasing stress on the body of the plane
5. Eventually the plane reaches its stress limit and breaks apart

Remaining problems:
1. When that happens in real life, the greatest stresses are on
the wings, which rip off from the fuselage before anything else happens. In 815, the fuselage broke in half with the wings still on.
2. if the EMP fried the control circuits, why didn't it fry Hurley's CD player or the pilot's emergency radio?

The plane breaking apart in the air has been bothering me since the answers show too. But I think LoveLaboursLost (quoted above) has the best "rational" explanation -- that the stress on the plane during its rapid, out-of-control descent caused it to break apart. Why the wings weren't the first thing to pop off is still a mystery, though.

There's probably some type of gravitational pull or force that affects things as they approach the island. We know that Naomi bailed from her helicopter because it was going down once she was near the island. Desmond's boat crashed onto the island. Henry Gail's balloon crashed onto the island. So it seems that something pulls objects towards the island when they are within a certain range of it. And maybe that mysterious force, combined with the EMP, was enough to cause 815 to break apart during its fall.

I think that since the button wasn't pushed, the electromagnetism got strong enough to pull the plane down. The parts with the most metal got pulled the strongest which caused the plane to rip apart. Maybe the electromagnetism fried the circuits as well.
I think they are just calling the strong electromagnetism that pulled the plane down an EMP. It seems to me that the pulse was only released after the failsafe was used at the end of season two.

Depressing simulation of Titanic sinking (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIKXzuNLiX8&mode=related&search=) -- not a model of the 815 crash, but inspiration.

There's probably some type of gravitational pull or force that affects things as they approach the island. We know that Naomi bailed from her helicopter because it was going down once she was near the island. Desmond's boat crashed onto the island. Henry Gail's balloon crashed onto the island. So it seems that something pulls objects towards the island when they are within a certain range of it. And maybe that mysterious force, combined with the EMP, was enough to cause 815 to break apart during its fall.

Nice one, Allergy. That's how I see it. It's not just the EMP, it's just this island's natural pull (perhaps within a certain radius) that attracts travellers who stray too near. (Question for Physics pros: is that what blackholes do?) :eek2:

Hey, it could even be like a natural way (supernatural?) to bring people to the island for the DI's various studies, almost like a built-in non-voluntary recruitment tool for subjects in their studies, dreamed up somewhere in the mind of... Ben, or Jacob, and projected onto the island and its general vicinity...

Hmm, wonder what Locke would think of that, being that he doesnt seem to like things that offer a way to and from the island...lol. Perhaps his vision would change it all...
100%
Depressing simulation of Titanic sinking (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIKXzuNLiX8&mode=related&search=) -- not a model of the 815 crash, but inspiration.


Nice link.

I would think that vid's a good example of how something quite unexpected (like a ship/boats structural integrity) might account for a seemingly implausible accident like the crash of 815 (also considering the conditions of 815). Nobody thought that would happen to the Titanic. But it did, and it lay scattered across the ocean bed. Who knows how a plane would react to a magnetic pull of that magnitude, and right AT the source. I mean, just how strong was it anyways? I dont think planes are built for such a thing, really.

Also, kudos to whomever above mentioned that whole trajectory thing, and the bubble (the degrees at which Michael had to leave the place). I like the idea of the plane feeling extra stress because of its angle of entry in to this Lost Zone... kinda like how those space thingamajiggers have to enter our atmosphere at a particular speed/angle for fear of burning up upon entry. Yes, i said thingamajiggers.

the stress on the body of the plane was/is probably more than it could handle. I'm not sure why this is such a question, the plane broke up in mid air because it had no power/energy to stay up in the air, it snapped like a twig, I mean is it really important why the plane broke up in mid-air, no it's not it just happened.

the stress on the body of the plane was/is probably more than it could handle. I'm not sure why this is such a question, the plane broke up in mid air because it had no power/energy to stay up in the air, it snapped like a twig, I mean is it really important why the plane broke up in mid-air, no it's not it just happened.

The stress of the plane was not any greater when it broke apart than when it is normally flying. It was gliding at a normal angle and not nosediving or falling while horizontal or anything.

The whole issue about why the plane broke apart mid air is that it looks unnatural. It looks like someone may have done it with explosives and planned a crash. Even if this is not the case, that's what it looks like, and wouldn't that be extremely important to the plot?

The producers said the crash was caused by the EMP from the Swan, but even frying the instruments wouldn't make break up like it did. There are many things that suggest the crash was not coincidence or that there is more to be explained about flight 815.

The stress of the plane was not any greater when it broke apart than when it is normally flying. It was gliding at a normal angle and not nosediving or falling while horizontal or anything.

The whole issue about why the plane broke apart mid air is that it looks unnatural. It looks like someone may have done it with explosives and planned a crash. Even if this is not the case, that's what it looks like, and wouldn't that be extremely important to the plot?

The producers said the crash was caused by the EMP from the Swan, but even frying the instruments wouldn't make break up like it did. There are many things that suggest the crash was not coincidence or that there is more to be explained about flight 815.

I was thinking about that today,but I think it was just a plane crash nothing "special"

I was thinking about that today,but I think it was just a plane crash nothing "special"

The whole point of this thread is that the mid-air break-up IS special. This type of airplane accident is VERY rare. Of the 900+ fatal commercial airline accidents between 1920 and 2001 (http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetGOjg/Disasters.htm) only 26 of these incidents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:In-flight_airliner_structural_failures) are considered "mid-air breakups".

Exactly. This crash doesnt need to conform to some sort of crash standard. Different forces were at work here.

So it seems most people believe the producers are telling lies.

I think they just took poetic licence and ripped it apart for affect, remember it is just a tv show, not reality.

I'm more interested in where the Island gets it's huge supply of Electromagnetism from. It might be a clue as to what the island really is.

Wouldn't be surprised if there was a bomb on board.

Wouldn't be surprised if there was a bomb on board.

I would be.

A bomb on board doesn't match up the magnetic meltdown Desmond talks about on the day of the crash.
I can't see it as being a bomb...and if it were, what a disappointing and predictable outcome.

Here's something completely crazy. If I remember right from back in Physics (good times), the greater the mass of something, the more it attracts things toward itself. Like gravity for instance. The Earth is heavy, and it's literally the Earth's heaviness that pulls us toward it. That's why gravity isn't as great on the moon, 'cause the moon's mass is smaller.

So what if there is something on (or under) this island that is so dense that it actually has enough mass to draw things toward it the same way that a planet does? If that were the case, it would probably mess up the Earth's rotation. So maybe Des really was saving the world? :p Actually this doesn't really make sense at all, 'cause then the survivors would have probably noticed by now that they feel twice as heavy as they usually do and probably wouldn't be able to walk. Aw, wait, wouldn't be able to walk, how about that.

If those figures are accurate (wikipedia can be a rather questionable source), faced with an 'invisible' island, and the signifigance of the numbers 8 and 15, among other combinations of the Valenzetti Equation, its probably not that unusual that Oceanic Flight 815 would be mid-air-breakup no.27.

As far as what appears to be a smooth glide, what isn't readily apparent are wind streams/shear that cause turbulence. The right force applied in the right place at the right points, especially if there are preexisting weaknesses in the fuselage itself that have not yet been detected by ground crew, would cause a seemingly gracefully gliding airliner to break up in the body first before the wings, which usually snap off first.